Deadline Looms for Online Gamblers to Petition for Seized Bankrolls

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Deadline Looms for Online Gamblers to Petition for Seized Bankrolls

Allan Doeksen is a professional online gambler. Well, he used to be.

He and perhaps tens of thousands of other U.S.-based internet gamers lost their bankrolls on Black Friday: April 15, the day the federal government seized the finances and domains of the world's largest offshore, online gambling sites.

It's not clear whether Doeksen will ever see his $40,000 that vanished when the authorities blocked access to Full Tilt Poker in the United States, and seized the Ireland-based casino's bank accounts. Doeksen has until the end of Friday to make a claim in New York federal court, and it's unclear whether there's enough money to go around.

That Doeksen's bankroll would suddenly vanish, the 32-year-old Florida man said in a telephone interview, "was a possibility I knew that could happen."

That's because online wagering in the United States is outlawed, based in part on the theory that gamblers could be taken to the cleaners by online gaming sites – which are located offshore and a world away.

"Among the arguments that were made in favor of the law were precisely things like that," said Patrick Fleming, an attorney for the Poker Players Alliance, which has 1.2 million members. "'Oh my God people would gamble away their money. We can't let them do that.'"

Yet in the process of protecting gamblers, the authorities' actions have cost an untold number of gamblers millions upon millions in lost wagering accounts.

"If you're real lucky you'll get 10 percent of the dollar," I. Nelson Rose, a gambling scholar at Whittier Law School in Southern California, speculated in a telephone interview.

While no authentic numbers are available, he suspects that "hundreds of thousands" of online gamblers lost "tens or hundreds of millions of dollars."

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (.pdf) was also, in part, a law to combat terrorism in a bid to control money laundering. In response to it, many overseas internet gambling sites blocked access to players in the United States, while many others had not.

On Black Friday, the government blocked the major online casinos that did not deny access to the United States, seizing their assets along the way.

The seized sites include Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. PokerStars is making available full refunds to the tune of about $120 million, but questions surround whether the other casinos will, or even have the means.

Gamblers that don't meet the claim deadline have other options, Fleming said in a telephone interview.

Among them, he said, the casinos might pay back the funds, gamblers could sue the casinos and the government might decide to release funding if a judge awards the seized assets to it. The government has declined to disclose how much money was seized.

Doeksen, who recently moved from Chicago to Florida because of Florida's more favorable income taxes, said his $40,000 bankroll just disappeared from Full Tilt Poker when the site went down.

Wagering on no-limit hold-em poker in the virtual world is more favorable to the real world, he said. For starters, "you can work from home," he said.

"It's more stimulating. You can play multiple tables. It's a lot more fun. The action is a lot faster," he said. "I can play 1,000 hands per hour. Now I'm playing live poker at very small dog tracks and going to Vegas."